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03 August 2016

The Baden Palmette Tiara

The Baden Palmette Tiara (Photo: Ian Gavan/Getty Images)

The Danish royal family has one of the biggest and widest-ranging tiara collections in Europe. Today, we're looking at one of the older and more traditional tiaras in the bunch. The Baden Palmette Tiara, an heirloom with a long history, is a petite diadem that still packs a big, sparkly punch.

Queen Margrethe wears the tiara at the Norwegian royal wedding in 2001 (Photo: Anthony Harvey/Getty Images)

The tiara is originally a German piece, made in the mid-nineteenth century, probably by Koch. It was reportedly a wedding gift from King Wilhelm of Prussia (who later became the first German kaiser) to his daughter, Princess Louise, who married Grand Duke Frederick of Baden in 1856.

Queen Margrethe wears the tiara at the Norwegian royal wedding in 2002 (Photo: Sion Touhig/Getty Images)

Frederick and Louise's daughter, Victoria, married King Gustaf V of Sweden in 1881. She brought the tiara with her to Stockholm (along with another rather familiar diadem, the Baden Fringe, which is generally worn today by Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden). When Victoria died in 1930, her granddaughter, Princess Ingrid, inherited the tiara, and when Ingrid married Frederik IX of Denmark five years later, she brought the tiara with her to her new country.

Queen Ingrid died in 2000, and her impressive jewel collection has filtered through the royal and princely families of Denmark, Greece, and Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg. Queen Margrethe was the lucky inheritor of this lovely tiara, and she wears it often. As it's a rather romantic tiara, with its heart-shaped palmette motifs, she often dons it for romantic occasions.

She's worn it to numerous royal weddings, including the nuptials of both Crown Prince Haakon and Princess Martha Louise of Norway, the wedding of her godson, Prince Carl Philip of Sweden, and the second wedding of her own son, Prince Joachim. It’s easy to see why the sparkler is one of Daisy's favorites: it’s elegant, playful, and (most importantly for a tiara) small and therefore likely quite comfortable.

Note: This is an updated version of an earlier post with new text/images.